


Nightwing's Thirsty Villains

by sophene



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Bat Brothers, Bat Family, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-17 18:49:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16101638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophene/pseuds/sophene
Summary: When Nightwing has to leave town, he asks his youngest brother to keep an eye on Blüdhaven. Things do not go the way that Damian expects.





	Nightwing's Thirsty Villains

Grayson has to leave town for a couple of weeks, and Damian will never admit it, but he is overjoyed that the member of the family Grayson asks to look after Blüdhaven is him. Of course, Damian is the natural choice, since there is no member of the family who is more competent and intelligent than him. Grayson does make him swear that he will be safe and ask the others for assistance should he stumble upon anything too dangerous or unusual, but Damian decides that this is just Grayson being overly cautious.

The first night patrolling Blüdhaven goes well, but is, for the most part, dull. Like Gotham, it has its freaks and its weirdos, and stupid thieves and petty criminals and the occasional genuinely vile monster. It’s nothing Damian hasn’t seen before. He picks up a few bad guys and dumps them on the steps of the nearest police department, but doesn’t have anything worth reporting back to Grayson or anyone else for that matter.

Then there’s the second night.

Damian is hopping from building to building when he happens to look down and see someone on an otherwise deserted street who is very obviously in the middle of breaking into a car.

He stops and hides behind a gargoyle, and peeks over the horns to watch the car thief’s progress.

Right away, his instincts tell him that something is up.

The car thief is a woman. It’s not that women can’t break into cars—Damian’s been in working with his father long enough to know they absolutely can—but nothing about this particular car thief’s attire indicates that she thought she might have to make a quick getaway. She’s wearing skintight dark jeans, black high-heeled boots, and a leather jacket. It’s not the kind of outfit one selects for its range of movement.

She’s also breaking into a green Kia Forte with a dented front bumper and a smashed door mirror.

Frowning, he starts to wonder if it’s her own car. Perhaps she locked her keys inside, and is just trying to get back in. He considers dropping down to offer his assistance, or at least to wait with her until she gets it open if she is concerned about her safety. But then he sees the suspicious way she keeps looking up and down the street, as if she’s watching out for someone who might catch her in the act.

Damian sighs and goes down the fire escape, not even bothering to hide the sounds of his approach. When he gets to the lowest level, he drops down to the pavement and asks, “Am I interrupting something?”

The woman freezes, but she doesn’t run. Instead she drops her tools and puts her hands up.

Damian thinks, _Weird_.

“So, you caught me,” she says.

Damian halts his approach, and the woman turns around. She’s smiling. She is wearing a lot of makeup, and has one of those edgy hairstyles that reminds him of Harper Row. Her brown eyes are angled up, where a fully-grown adult’s eyes would be if one was there. Then she looks down at Damian, and the second her eyes meet his she stops smiling.

“Robin? What are you doing here? Where is Nightwing?” she asks.

Damian frowns and says, “I beg your pardon?”

“Blüdhaven is Nightwing’s territory. You’re not supposed to be out here,” she says.

“Nightwing is busy at the moment. He asked me to keep an eye on Blüdhaven for him,” Damian says.

The woman groans and rolls her eyes.

“Shit,” she says. “Shit! Shit!”

Damian is mystified.

“Are you...acquainted with Nightwing?” he asks.

“No,” the woman says. “But anything can happen, right?”

Damian does not understand. He tells her so.

“Why do you think I want to get to know him, kid? The guy has a great ass. God, this is so embarrassing,” she says, and there’s enough light from the nearest streetlamp that he can see she’s blushing. “I should not have told you that. How old are you, anyway?”

Damian is too perplexed to know what to say, and does not answer the question.

“Well, I guess I’m going home then,” she says, with a resigned sigh. “Just me and my Netflix, as usual.”

“You are not going anywhere. You were attempting to break into this vehicle, so I am taking you to the police. I do not care if it was only a ruse to get Nightwing’s attention,” Damian tells her.  

The woman pulls something out of her pocket and holds it up for him to see. Car keys. She hits a button and the green car beeps.

“Stay out of trouble,” she says, as if they are old friends. She doesn’t bother to pick up her tools, but opens the car door and climbs into it. Damian does not approve, but he is still too stunned to say anything.

He watches her start the car and drive away. As her car disappears around the corner, he thinks about how many strange things have happened to him, but never anything quite as strange as that.

* * *

Then it happens a second time.

It’s day four of Grayson’s absence, and Damian is having another routine night so far. He is even starting to forget about the weird woman who was trying to break into her own car. Then he hears a series of very loud crashes, and an alarm wails.

Damian runs in the direction of all of the noise and finds a small jewelry store in disarray. The front window is in shards on the concrete. When he looks inside, he sees a brick on the floor and several smashed display cases, but there’s no sign of whoever it was who broke in.

Then he hears a metallic rattle from up above. He looks up, spots the dark figure noisily heading up the fire escape of the building next door. Damian is focused on the mission, but even as he darts after the thief and starts to make his ascent, he can’t help but think that something about the scenario is strange.

What is strange about it becomes obvious when the jewelry thief gets to the roof and abruptly stops running.

He puts his arms up, like the woman from the other night, and turns around. He’s clutching some stolen jewelry in one hand.

“Hey, Nightwing—what the hell?”

The guy balks down at Damian.

The jewelry thief is nothing special to look at. He’s skinny, unshaven, kind of pale. Damian guesses he’s in his mid-twenties or early thirties, and there’s a sort of wild desperation in his eyes that Damian does not like or trust.

“Who the hell are you?” the guy asks.

Damian points to the R on his chest and says, “Robin.”

“Yeah, I know, I just meant—like, where’s Nightwing?” he asks.

“He’s out of town tonight.”

“Oh,” the guy says, and starts to lower his hands. He has the nerve to look disappointed.

There’s an awkward beat of silence. Then the guy clears his throat and asks, “So when is he getting back?”

Damian huffs out a laugh and says, “That is none of your business. And anyway, you will be in jail by the time he returns, so it does not matter.”

Damian starts to come toward him, and the jewelry thief backs away, holding up his arms in a placating gesture.

“Whoa, dude, hang on,” he says. “Let’s talk it out.”

“There is nothing to discuss.”

“You can have the jewelry back, ok? I didn’t even want the jewelry, really, I just wanted to meet Nightwing. I swear.”

And even though Damian already knows the answer, he finds himself asking, “Why?”

The guy shrugs and says, “You know. I was in the area, and if you think you have a shot…”

“Oh, come on,” Damian says, throwing his hands up. “Again?”

“Again?” the guy says.

But Damian is finished with the conversation, and the jewelry thief has nowhere to run except right off the roof of the building.

“You can give yourself up, or we can do this the painful way that involves you getting punched several times,” Damian says, and backs the thief into a corner of the roof. He cowers, which is unnecessary and has to be a little embarrassing for him, but Damian appreciates it all the same.

“Look,” the guy says, and drops to the ground on his stomach. Damian walks over to him, and the man is boneless and unresisting as Damian ties his hands behind his back. “Let’s make a deal, right? Like I said, I didn’t really want to rob the jewelry store, I just wanted to meet Nightwing. I’m not even from here. If you let me go, I’ll get out of your hair.”

“You did what I am assuming is thousands of dollars worth of property damage,” Damian says.

“That’s fair,” the thief says.

Satisfied that his hands are securely bound, Damian moves down to bind his legs. Thankfully, the thief doesn’t say anything else as Damian is tying him up. He continues not saying anything as Damian calls the Blüdhaven police and explains how to find him and the stolen jewelry.

When the call is over and Damian is pulling out his grappling gun, he turns and catches the guy eyeing him.

“You vigilante types are all connected right?” the jewelry thief asks, cocking an eyebrow. “You all know each other?”

“Yes,” Damian says.

“Is Red Hood out of town too?” the thief asks.

Damian does not dignify this with a response.

* * *

The jewelry thief is not the last, nor the strangest of the hopeful individuals who Damian catches breaking the law for the sole purpose of meeting Nightwing.

The next night, Damian rushes out to rescue a man who has been abducted. When he finally tracks the abducted man down in a crappy one bedroom apartment, his abductor takes one look at Damian and says, “What are you doing here? This is Nightwing’s city.”

“Please tell me you did not abduct someone because you wanted to meet Nightwing. Kidnapping is a very serious offense,” Damian says, glowering at the woman. She is dressed in a tight black leather outfit which Damian assumes is supposed to be reminiscent of Catwoman’s attire. She is not pulling it off nearly as well as Selina does, however.

The woman looks confused for a moment, then gestures down at the man, whose hands and feet are bound, a black hood pulled over his head. She says, “Oh, I didn’t abduct him, not really. This is Gary, my boyfriend.” She pulls the hood off Gary’s head to reveal a slightly balding middle-aged man. Gary is gagged, and he looks appropriately terrified for a moment. Until he sees Damian, and then the look turns to blank surprise.

Eventually Damian works out that her name is Vanessa, and she and her boyfriend have staged the abduction as some sort of elaborate roleplaying fantasy. Damian decides not to ask them whether or not they really thought that would work, because he is not in the mood to be traumatized.

“So if Nightwing is out of town, then what about—”

“If you ask me if I can get you in touch with Red Hood, I will throw up,” Damian warns.

Vanessa doesn’t finish her sentence.

Since they technically didn’t do anything wrong, Damian just leaves.  

But it is enough of a pattern that Damian feels compelled to mention it to the rest of the Bats when they’re gathered in the cave the following day.

“No way,” Drake says, rolling his eyes.

“Did you not hear what I said about the jewelry thief?” Damian asks.

“Nobody is stupid enough to risk _going to jail_ just to meet Dick. He’s handsome, sure, but he’s not that handsome,” Tim says.

Brown mutters something under her breath that Damian does not catch, but Cassandra is standing closer to her and does. The two start giggling, and Drake glares at them.

“So far there have been three incidents,” Damian says. “And they do not just want to meet him. Their interest in Nightwing is sexual in nature.”

Father chokes on his coffee.

Alfred helpfully slaps Father on the back, and when Father’s throat is clear again, he asks, “Have you spoken to Dick about it?”

“I attempted to call him last night after the farce with the fake kidnapped man and his abductor girlfriend,” Damian says with a bit of malice, glaring at Drake as he speaks, “but he did not answer his phone.”

“Hm,” Father says. “Well, if it is happening, Nightwing should have found a way to put a stop to it ages ago.”

Father leaves the cave then, and Alfred follows, as usual. Damian scowls after them. He resents the fact that his father said “if,” instead of believing Damian outright. And he resents Drake’s presence at all times.

“I still think this is all bullshit,” Drake says when Father is gone.

“No one asked you for your opinion,” Damian snaps. “You’re just jealous because no one goes out of their way to see your ugly face.”

Instead of taking the bait, Drake smirks and rolls his eyes again. Damian really, really wants to punch him. But Father will be disappointed in him if he punches Drake in the batcave. Again.

“It is really happening,” Damian says, instead of hitting anyone. “And I will prove it.”

* * *

Three days go by without another strange incident, and Damian knows it’s stupid to be annoyed that people aren’t breaking the law, but he’s a little panicked at the thought that he might never get proof. Maybe word is getting around that Nightwing is out of town, so all of his adoring fans are on their best behavior.

Then he catches a woman who wanted to get Nightwing’s attention so badly that she lit a building on fire. The building was empty at the time, but Damian still disapproves of the severity of this behavior. She’s mad enough about Nightwing’s absence that she also tries to set fire to Damian’s cape. The cape is flame-retardant, so this does not work, but Damian is still annoyed about it.

He’s tying her up in an alley when her personality does a 180. Suddenly she’s all bubbly, asking him questions about what Nightwing is like and treating Damian as if they’re great friends.

“You vigilantes are one big happy family, right?” she asks.

“No.”

“You could get me his number, can’t you little guy?”

“I am not little, I am thirteen, and no, I cannot get you Nightwing’s number. You have committed arson and I am turning you in to the police.”

“The building was condemned anyway. You’re no fun,” she whines. “I just wanted to meet him, you know? He is such a great guy. Everyone in Blüdhaven loves him. He’s our hero!”

Damian, on impulse, pulls out his phone. He holds it up so the camera will catch his face and starts recording.

“I caught this woman lighting a building on fire because she was hoping Nightwing would come by to stop her,” Damian says.

He angles the phone down to get her too. Her clothes are grey-tinged with smoke, and she’s wild-eyed. She has blonde hair and she’s pretty in a cute, intelligent-looking sort of way, which is exactly Nightwing’s type. Somehow this just makes the situation that much more absurd. Had she not broken the law, Grayson might have met her as a civilian and asked for her number.

“Oh hey, are you recording?” the woman says. “Are you going to send the video to Nightwing? Hi Nightwing!”

“The video is not going to Nightwing,” Damian tells her, but the woman ignores him.

“I love you! And I love how you’re always looking out for Blüdhaven!” she says. “I sleep safely in my bed every night knowing you’re out there watching out for us!”

“You tried to set me on fire,” Damian says, but she continues ignoring him and goes on talking to Nightwing as if he’s there.

Damian angles the phone back up to his own face and stares into the camera for several minutes while she’s talking in the background. At first everything she’s saying is innocent and adoring, and then things get vaguely suggestive, and then overtly suggestive, and then weirdly threatening, before finally looping back around to being adoring again.

Satisfied, he ends the recording and sends it to all of the Bats. That will teach Drake and Father—and everyone else in the family, for that matter—to not believe him when he tells them something is happening.

* * *

Damian’s video of the arsonist is all any of the Bats can talk about for days, and Damian is caught off guard when Drake apologizes for doubting him.

The victory feels hollow, however, as Damian is still stuck in Blüdhaven. He winds up making a whole series of videos of him disappointing terrible criminals who had hoped to catch the attention of Nightwing.

One afternoon, he finally gets a video call from Grayson.

“Yeah, I mean, some people do get a little carried away,” Grayson says.

Damian thinks he is grossly minimizing the severity of the situation.

“A little carried away? One of them tried to set me on fire.”

“Ok, some of them get a lot carried away,” Grayson admits, looking shamefaced.

“Why didn’t you tell Father?” Damian asks.

Grayson frowns. “Bruce? I don’t know. I thought it has to happen to him all the time. Catwoman is an obvious example, but I figured there have to be others.”

“Catwoman is a real thief. She doesn’t commit crimes just to get Father’s attention. And nothing like this has never happened to me,” Damian says.

“Yeah, well, you’re thirteen. It’ll probably happen to you eventually,” Grayson says.

“The others were just as surprised as me.” His video of the arsonist had been discussed at length, and no one else had mentioned, at any point, having had a similar experience. Damian tells Grayson so.

“So…not one of them? Really?”

“Really!”

“Oh,” Grayson says, and he does look troubled. “Ok. Well, good to know.”

“You should do something about it. As soon as possible,” Damian says. “Father was displeased.”

“What else is new?” Grayson asks.

“Maybe if your suit wasn’t so tight,” Damian suggests.

“Are you seriously slut shaming me right now?”

“Of course not. But you must do something, Grayson. The people of Blüdhaven need to understand that they cannot continue acting like this. It is an enormous waste of your time, and they are putting themselves at risk. Not one of them would stand a chance if faced with a real villain,” Damian says.

“Ok, ok,” Grayson says. “Sheesh, tiny Bruce. I hear you loud and clear.”

* * *

Unfortunately, Drake is so intrigued by the video of the arsonist that he tags along with Damian in Blüdhaven one night.

“I do not want you here,” Damian tells him.

“Shut up, Robin,” Drake says. “I’m staying and you can’t stop me.”

“Do you not have your own streets to patrol?”

Drake ignores his complaints and keeps following him. Damian finds himself hoping, more than usual, that it will be a normal night.

But hoping is futile, because of course they have to run into another weirdo on the same night Drake happens to be with him.

This one is different from the others. This one is dressed up in an absurd silver and scarlet costume and is laughing maniacally from the balcony of a bank building. When Damian and Drake arrive on the scene, four members of the Blüdhaven police force have it surrounded and have shooed spectators over to the other side of the street.

“Who is this freak?” Drake asks one of the cops.

“No idea,” she says. “So far all he’s done is yelled that he wants to talk to Nightwing. But he was freaking people out, so we cleared the area.”

On cue, the man on the balcony screams, “I am the Scarlet Demon! I will only talk to Nightwing!”

Drake gives Damian a look which asks, “Who?” Damian shrugs. He’s never heard of any villain who calls himself the Scarlet Demon before.

“Does he have any hostages in there?” Drake asks, pointing at the building.

“Not that we know of,” the cop says.

“Cool,” Drake says. “Then we’re going in. Come on, Robin.”

As Damian and Drake sneak off and break into the building, Damian reminds Drake that Blüdhaven is his responsibility until Grayson gets back, so he is the one who calls the shots. Drake just says, “Yeah, yeah,” and waves his complaints off. 

They make their way up the levels of the bank, and they don’t come across any other people in the building. They don’t find any traps either, or bombs, or any indication whatsoever that the Scarlet Demon has anything more nefarious planned aside from disturbing the peace.

When they reach the top floor, they easily find the room where the Scarlet Demon is holed up and crouch outside the door. They can hear him still bellowing down at the police that he wants to talk to Nightwing.

“How are we going to do this?” Drake asks, not even bothering to lower his voice.

Damian scoffs and kicks down the door.

They catch the Scarlet Demon completely by surprise. One thing that becomes obvious right away is that although the guy is gigantic and muscular, he’s no fighter. He doesn’t have any weapons either. In seconds Damian and Drake have him on the ground, and neither of them is concerned enough to worry about restraining him.

Wincing and clutching his jaw, the Scarlet Demon squints up at them.

“I said I wanted to talk to Nightwing!” he says.

“Nightwing took the night off,” Drake says, leaning on his bo staff.

Damian crosses his arms over his chest and says, “We will have to suffice.”

Damian and Drake look around the room. It is an office, a nice one, and save for the Scarlet Demon, nothing seems to be amiss.

“So is there a purpose to…all of this?” Drake asks. He gestures at the Scarlet Demon’s costume.

“I am the Scarlet Demon, Nightwing’s nemesis!”

Damian and Drake exchange a look.

“…Ok,” Drake says.

“I want to talk to Nightwing!”

“Too bad,” Damian says, and Drake says, “Not going to happen.”

The Scarlet Demon howls in frustration.

Several minutes of calm questions from Drake and furious ranting from the Scarlet Demon later, he finally admits that his name is Jeff and he just really, really wants to meet Nightwing. Damian, whose temper has been hanging on by the finest of threads the past few days, finally snaps.

“Blüdhaven has real problems, and you and too many other idiots are acting like Nightwing has nothing better to do than chase you around!” Damian yells at him.

Damian starts forward toward Jeff, and Drake puts an arm across his chest to block him. Normally Damian would not tolerate this, but since he is perhaps unreasonably angry at this time, he allows it.

“I didn’t mean any real harm by it,” Jeff says. “Haven’t you ever met someone and thought you’d do just about anything to get to know them?”

“Of course not,” Damian says. “Get your arm away from me, Red Robin. I am going to tie him up.”

Jeff allows Damian to tie him up without resisting. As Damian does, he continues lecturing Jeff about irresponsibility and not breaking and entering for ridiculous reasons. At some point, Drake gets out his phone and starts filming. Damian also allows this, since he believes Jeff has earned a little bit of humiliation.

“Do you know what Nightwing finds attractive?” Damian asks Jeff.

Jeff shakes his head.

“He’s attracted to people who obey the law! He doesn’t go for people who dress up in ridiculous outfits or vandalize jewelry stores or start fires just because they have a crush on him. None of you even know what Nightwing is like as a person! All you imbeciles see is a body in a tight suit. How can you be so shallow?”

Jeff, one side of his face mushed into the tile, says, “You’re a kid. You’ll get it one day when you’re older.”

“I am not that young!”

Jeff shrugs—or tries to, which is difficult with his arms and bound behind his back. Then his gaze shifts over to Drake.

“You’re Red Robin, right?” Jeff asks. “Never really noticed you before, but I have to say, the wings are kinda doing it for me. Are you single?”

Drake opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. Damian gives Jeff a look of deep disgust.

“Jeff, have some self-respect,” Damian tells him.

Then he gets out his grappling gun and leaves the bank building without stopping to wait for Drake—or to speak to the police.

Grayson cannot return to Blüdhaven soon enough.

* * *

Grayson eventually does return, and Damian is relieved.

The next time he comes by the manor, Father spends nearly an entire hour lecturing him about not being stern enough with his admirers. Grayson sighs a lot, sulks, and argues with Father, but eventually agrees to be less forgiving from then on. No one tells Damian to go away, so he listens to the whole conversation. He finds the experience very cathartic.

Damian, meanwhile, returns to patrolling with his Father.

A couple of months go by, and Damian mostly blocks the hellish weeks he spent in Blüdhaven from his memory. He tells himself he’s over it. Someone occasionally brings up the video of the arsonist, but Damian refuses to talk about it.

Then there’s yet another disaster in Gotham, and the whole family gets pulled in to deal with it. Penguin and Black Mask have some sort of turf war going on, and it’s up to the bats to stop them.

Damian is expecting many things from the evening—mostly that his family members will be bossy and condescending and lecture him about putting himself at risk. He is also expecting that he and his father will eventually save the day yet again, and that Damian will be under-appreciated for his role in the whole ordeal, as usual.

He is not expecting that he and father are going to trace a false lead back to one of Black Mask’s warehouses right after Nightwing has caught Deathstroke trying to sneak out of it. Damian and his father are up hidden in the shadow of the ceiling, and neither Grayson nor Deathstroke seem to realize that they are being observed.

“Slade, we talked about this,” Grayson says.

Somehow he’s caught Deathstroke around the ankle with a chain. Slade is hanging upside down in front of Grayson, swaying a little back and forth. Damian knows enough about Deathstroke to be able to tell that he could easily get out of the predicament if he wanted to. Which means that he doesn’t want to.

“Nightwing,” Slade says amiably.

“I thought we agreed that you were going to leave town for a while,” Grayson says.

“I love surprising you,” Deathstroke says.

“This is serious.”

Grayson puts a hand on his hip and actually wags a finger at Deathstroke. He looks like an crabby librarian, and Damian has to stifle an exhausted sigh.

“Batman thinks I waste too much time dealing with people who are just grabbing for attention, and you skulking around Blüdhaven and Gotham isn’t helping,” Grayson says.

“I’m not like the others,” Deathstroke says. “You and I are special to each other.”

“You are exactly like the others and I am sick of it,” Grayson says.

Next to him, Father tips his head down and squeezes his forehead like he’s getting a headache. When Father silently turns and leaves the warehouse, Damian cannot pretend he is surprised.  

Damian does not leave.

“I haven’t done anything wrong this time! You can’t send me away when I haven’t done anything wrong,” Deathstroke says.

“I didn’t send you away, I asked you to back off for a little while. And you said yes, you’d do it, and now here we are,” Grayson says.

At this point, Damian decides that he has heard enough. He drops down from the ceiling, using several crates as landing pads on his way down to the lowest level where Grayson is talking to Deathstroke.

“Robin!” Grayson says. “When did you get here?”

“Yes, why are you here?” Deathstroke asks.

“Father and I are looking for Black Mask,” Robin says. He looks at Deathstroke and raises one eyebrow. “The better question is what the hell are you doing here?”

“I was in the area,” Deathstroke says.

“Jesus, Slade—”

“You,” Damian huffs, “and the rest of the freaks in Blüdhaven are going to leave my brother alone or I will deal with you myself!”

Deathstroke laughs.

Damian lurches toward him, but Grayson intercepts him. He grabs Damian around the waist and holds on while Damian thrashes in his grasp.

“The little fledgling is so angry,” Deathstroke says.

Damian starts to thrash even harder, pushing against Grayson with all of his strength so he can break free and attack to Deathstroke.

Grayson must realize that this is Damian’s objective, because he drags Damian right out of the warehouse.

Damian’s head feels a little clearer when they’re outside. Now that he can no longer see Deathstroke, he doesn’t feel quite as compelled to kill him. When Grayson finally lets him go, Damian has to sit on the ground and breathe for a little while until his temper is back under control.

After a while, Grayson kneels down in front of him.

“Ok, Robin,” Grayson says. “Why are you so upset? I was handling it.”

Damian scoffs.

“You call that handling it? I’ve seen kittens behave with more ruthlessness than that.”

Grayson waves a hand and says, “It’s just Deathstroke. I can handle Deathstroke. I’ve been dealing with him for a long time.”

He sounds so confident and optimistic as he says it.

Damian silently stares at his brother. He feels as if he is seeing the problem clearly for the first time. He is no longer angry, but he does know what he has to do.

Nightwing clearly has no idea how to deal with his overzealous fans. Damian avoiding Blüdhaven is not going to fix the problem. Soon they will wrap up this mess with Black Mask and Penguin, and then Damian will have to spend more time with Nightwing as Robin. He will be there at Nightwing’s side until the people of Blüdhaven—and other lowlifes like Deathstroke—finally back off and let him do his job.

Damian gets up, and brushes the dirt off his cape.

“It’s ok,” Damian tells him. “I can be mean enough for the both of us.”

Grayson frowns and asks, “What does that mean?”

He looks worried, but Damian does not give him an answer. He pats Grayson on the shoulder instead, and departs to go meet up with his father.

First Black Mask and Penguin, then he will help his brother. Somebody has to do it, and Damian knows he is the best person for the job.

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another story inspired by a conversation I had with my friends. Thanks for reading!


End file.
